900 Indians to be flown out of Iraq, 1,500 register to leave

Nine hundred more Indians have been provided air tickets to fly out of Iraq and 1,500 Indian nationals have registered for leaving the country. Hundred Indians remain in the conflict zone, including 46 nurses who were moved out of Tikrit by the ISIS and 39 Indian workers who are in captivity in Mosul.

“The numbers of tickets that are now available for Indians to travel out of Iraq has increased to approximately 900. Most of them are flying on Iraqi Airways flights where there are seats available. We are booking them to the nearest international airport in India,” said MEA spokesperson, Syed Akbaruddin.

Nearly 600 Indians have left the country already.

Meanwhile, there are about 1,000 Indians who said they would not like to come back. Twenty five Indian officials are now working in areas like Karbala, Najaf and Basra to facilitate the Indians who want to leave the country.

“There are some others who we are working with in terms of their coming to a decision on whether they would like to leave or not. As it happens in such situations, there is sometimes a wavering of intentions and sometimes, there is a change in perceptions. So these are normal situations which our officials are working on,” a spokesperson said.

Currently, there are 350 passports that are being processed for Indian nationals from Najaf, 290 from Karbala, 190 from Basra and a few from Baghdad as well. “In Baghdad, there is no backlog because we have an embassy there and so all the work that is there is up to date,” the spokesperson added.